


This isn't Happening

by thegreatstoryteller



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Making Out, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-08 22:17:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16437851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegreatstoryteller/pseuds/thegreatstoryteller
Summary: As long as anyone can remember, at the age of sixteen the name of your soulmate appears on your arm. Danny and Dash finally get to find out who their soulmate is, and life suddenly gets a lot more complicated.





	1. Chapter 1

Sixteen.

One minute away.

It was that moment you waited your whole life for. Where every waited line, every boring class, every drawn out conversation, finally filled the time to get you here. In only a few brief moments the world would change. 

Forty-five seconds.

His heart hammered, he could feel it beating between his eyes. His palms were sweating, even with the air conditioning on high. The mattress creaked beneath him as he shifted his weight.

Thirty…..twenty-five…..

The clock ticked maddeningly slow. He’d been dreaming about this moment since he was a little boy. When he’d first noticed the writing on his own parent’s arms. Scrawled in the others handwriting, an eternal symbol of love. Effectively meaning one thing, they were soulmates. He looked down at his still blank arm.  _ Come on clock! _

Ten...nine...eight...seven...six...five...four...three...two…...one.

The clock struck midnight. January 13th. Today was his sixteenth birthday. His eyes flashed down to his arm. 

His…...still…..blank arm.

Damn. His soul mate wasn’t sixteen, yet. Now he had to play the waiting game, again. This time waiting for his soulmate turned sixteen and get their own writing. Before he’d had a time frame for his wait, now he was screwed. He’d known the possibility, but he hoped he’d get lucky.

Dash Baxter laid down onto his bed and closed his eyes.  _ Hopefully, they’re not ten years younger than me _ . He thought. Dash shook his head. Now, tomorrow, he’d have to deal with his friends hassling him. The whole school knew it was his birthday, and they were waiting with bated breath. They wanted to know which auspicious girl was getting the star quarterback.

For now, it was none of them.  _ I’ll just have to wait and see _ .


	2. Chapter 2

Danny had honestly forgotten about his birthday. Johnny and Kitty were in the middle of a massive fight and were rampaging across Amity Park. Johnny was checking out a ghost girl with a thin waist and large ‘assets’; Kitty didn’t appreciate it. The two came screaming out of the ghost portal two days ago and had been evading him ever since.

He’d worked right through midnight, completely oblivious. It was April 15th, and he didn’t realize. Sam and Tucker were dead on their feet trying to keep up with Danny and the battling ghost duo ahead of him. They were exhausted beyond belief, they couldn’t have told you the month, let alone that it was their best friend’s birthday.

It wasn’t until the trio trudged through the front door of Fenton Works, a thermos full of the ghost couple, when they realized. Mr. and Mrs. popped out of the kitchen dressed in their pajamas, coffee mugs gripped tight. 

“Oh, Danny!” Mrs. Fenton said excitedly with a large smile on her face. “Let’s see it!”

“What?” Danny asked.  _ See what?   _ He was heading toward the stairs to his room, and groaned at the roadblock. It was too late for his parent's antics, he needed to sleep.

“Your arm,” His mother said rolling her eyes. “We want to know who your soulmate is.” Danny stopped dead.

“.....soulmate?” He said slowly, feeling the weight of the word, but lost to the reason why it felt so heavy. Why would they ask? His birthday wasn’t until……..oh, shit. Danny’s head whipped down, but his black jacket hid his arm. He fumbled with the zipper which got stuck halfway. He grunted in frustration and yanked his arm out of the sleeve. Wrong arm. He pulled out the other arm…...and there it was.

In neat, blocky handwriting that was foreign to his eyes. But the name…...the name was all too familiar.

 

\----------

 

Dash woke up with a jolted start.  _ Stupid alarm _ . He hit it with the back of his hand and the room went silent. Another Monday Funday.  _ Bullshit _ , he thought. Another month and a half, he’d be out of Sophomore year and into Junior, slowly inching his way out of high school.

Dash groaned and sat up. He couldn’t imagine a worse punishment than being conscious at five in the morning. He left his bedroom and crept through the house, not even his parents had to be up this early. Well, that’s what he got for doing extra gym practice before school. Had to keep in shape.

He made it to the bathroom, flipped on the light, and winced blinded momentarily. A tired, bed ragged face greeted him in the mirror. Yay, sleep deprivation. Dash reached forward to grab his toothbrush and froze.

“You gotta be fucking kidding me!”

 

\-----------

 

It was eight in the morning. The halls of the school slowly filled with students, but there was still twenty minutes until the bell. Danny stood at his locker with a conspicuous, long sleeve shirt. It was April, not December. Thankfully, his birthday wasn’t common knowledge. The only person who was friendly enough to know was Valerie. Sam and Tucker already had already shooed her away when she started to approach the trio.

“Dude, this isn’t going to be the end of the world,” Tucker reassured him.

“Yeah, if anything you’re about to get a huge break in life,” Sam told him. Danny responded by thudding his head against the lockers. Sam ignored him. “Dash may be an ass, but he’d never let anyone pick on his soulmate.”

“Thanks, Sam,” He said with more of a robotic voice than he expected. Danny appreciated that she was trying to find the bright side, an impressive feat for the queen of darkness, but he wasn’t ready to face this yet.

He wasn’t the only one.

At the end of the hall Dash Baxter walked through the door in his signature letterman jacket. He and Danny locked eyes and froze. Danny felt like a new ice age had rushed through the school corridors. The moment stretched on for a few tense seconds, before, without a word, Dash turned and walked back out of the school.

“You think he knows?” Tucker asked, a joking edge in his voice. Sam elbowed him in the ribs.

Sam sighed and stared at where Dash had left, the spot Danny’s eyes were still fixated on. “Maybe you should talk to him?” She suggested. Danny shook his head.

“If he wants anything to do with me, he can come to me,” Danny said rigidly. “I’m not forcing him.” Without another word, Danny turned away from his friends and started down the hall to class. All the while, doing his best to ignore the pained ache he felt in his chest.

Why did it hurt, having Dash run from him? He was a bully and a jerk who got off on torturing people who were weaker than him. He hadn’t been doing it lately. Danny struggled to remember the last time Dash or his goons had picked on him. He clearly remembered being shoved into a locker the first day of school…..after that-nothing.

“At least he isn’t being as much of a jerk,” Danny muttered under his breath. He entered history glass and dropped heavily into his seat. People chattered around him. If they only glanced the name written on his arm, they’d be talking about a completely different topic. The jock and the geek. Danny inwardly groaned.

Luckily, Dash and Danny only shared two classes, fifth-period English, and sixth-period gym. Survive the last two classes of the day that’s all he had to do. Oh, and avoid Dash at lunch. Great, only two more years until graduation. Could he transfer?

Danny kept his head low and may have used his ghost powers to slip in and out of the halls unseen. He’d told Sam and Tucker he’d let Dash approach him, but Danny was making it impossible with his disappearing act. This is a stress he didn’t need at the moment. Danny wanted his focus on the ghost zone, not on a guy who bullied him half his life-who was now his ill-fated soulmate.

The day went by too fast. Lunch came and went, and Danny spent it eating on the roof of the school. Before he was prepared for it, fifth period came. English, Danny had never loathed it more in his life. Danny walked into Mr. Lancer enthusiastically writing their assignment on the wipe board. Dash wasn’t there, yet.

Two seconds before the ding of the bell Dash walked through the door, head down and eyes trained anywhere except the back left corner where Danny sat.

“Good job, Mr. Baxter,” Mr. Lancer drawled. “You’ve narrowly escaped a tardy slip.” Dash didn’t respond with the witty comebacks he was known for, he just kept quiet and sat down in his seat. Mr. Lancer raised an eyebrow but didn’t outwardly question the behavior.

Danny watched Dash get prodded by his friends to joke around during free study. Dash hunched up his shoulders and ignored them. They weren’t sure what had made their friend so serious, but they weren’t poking at a grumpy bear.

Class ended and Dash sprinted out the door. Danny shuffled forward through the students still grabbing for their bags. The path to the gym was crowded and Danny felt the strong grip of suffocation closing in on him. He wanted to scream. He wanted to run. He wanted to not deal with the fact that his former bully was his soulmate!

Danny avoided the locker room. He snuck in, invisible of course, took his shorts from his locker and changed in an empty shower stall. Students filed out and spread out across the gym. He only made himself tangible when Ms. Tetslaff yelled for everyone’s attention.

“Alright! We’re going outside today!” She yelled at them, a collective cheer went up. Danny craned his neck, scanning the group for Dash. The usually towering jock was absent. “We’re doing laps on the track!” There were muffled groans, but still an overwhelming joy from getting to escape the stuffy gymnasium.

Danny jogged the laps easy enough. It took a lot to wind a half ghost. He feigned exhaustion every other lap; had to keep up appearances. Ten laps in Telstaff gave them a break. Danny walked to the drinking fountain, but never made it. From behind the equipment shed an arm reached out and pulled him from view.


	3. Chapter 3

Danny tensed up and prepared to go ghost, until he realized who was pulling him away from the sports field. Dash. He had an arm on Danny’s bicep and was dragging him into the shed. The metal door slammed behind them with a loud ‘clank’ and, they were alone.

Okay.  _ Did not expect that _ . Danny thought.

The two stood two feet apart, underneath the swaying light of a single overhead bulb. Dash was staring at the ground, nervously shifting his weight from foot to foot. Danny was taken aback at the sight. Dash was as confident as a lion, no hesitation, no fear. Here he stood, anxious and staring at his feet like a first grader trying to make a new friend.

“....Uh, Dash?” Danny questioned. Dash’s head snapped up. The nervousness fled him and he put on his football face. A mask of butch masculinity that was a mix of ‘I’m going to punch in the face’ and ‘I eat broken glass for breakfast’. Danny had never realized before. How soft Dash’s features could go, like melted chocolate.

Dash opened his mouth to say something, but his words faltered and he let out a frustrated grunt of air.

“Take your time,” Danny told him. “Figure out what you want to say, then work on saying it.” If this had been a day earlier Danny’s tone would have been condescending, treating Dash like a stone-headed jock and nothing else. Now-now he was standing with his struggling soulmate and he tried his best to support him.

After a moment, Dash spoke. “I’m sorry.”

_ What? Did I hear that right? _

Danny blinked. “You’re sorry?”

Dash nodded. He groaned and sat heavily onto a nearby stack of mats. “I’ve been shitty to you for years and now it turns out we’re, you know…” Dash waived his arm. “You deserve better than a self-absorbed jock whose stuffed you in a locker more times than he’s scored a touchdown.” Dash rubbed at his face. It took Danny a moment to realize Dash was crying.

Emotional displays were not Danny’s strong suit, as he was sure they weren’t Dash’s either. He watched in rising panic trying to figure out what to do. Comfort? Ignore? Get him a sandwich? What was he supposed to do!

A process of elimination helped; Ignoring would have made him a terrible soulmate, sandwiches were great, but there weren’t any shops in immediate walking distance. Danny wasn’t convinced it would help even if there was. So, he did the only thing he could think of. He took a tentative step forward, and wrapped his arms tightly around Dash’s broad shoulders.

“It’s alright, Dash,” Danny said. “We didn’t know.” Dash’s shoulders shook unexpectedly and Danny tightened his arms instinctively. It brought the two closer together. Danny’s head pressed into the crook of Dash’s neck, his footing was lost as he leaned closer. A set of large hands landed on his hips to steady him.

The world stopped. Not a muscle between them moved, not a breath of air left their lungs. They stayed stuck in that position, waiting for the clock to fast forward them into a less awkward position. Didn’t happen, of course. They were left to figure out the situation themselves.

Slowly, Danny pulled back a few inches, enough to look Dash in the eye. Dash’s breath returned to him in rapid bursts, his tears had dried, now he seemed more on track for hyperventilating. The hands on his hips were firm, but delicate. Dash didn’t want to let him go, and Danny found he oddly did not want to leave where they were.

Danny felt the world casually begin to turn again as he leaned forward. His lips brushed softly against Dash’s. He felt him tense and his hands tighten before relaxing again realizing his grip might have been painful.

Danny had been kissed before, by Sam, by Valerie, heck even Paulina! None of those could compare to what he experienced now. Dash’s lips were soft, supple, with a faint hint of strawberry chapstick. He could smell the cologne on his body, and the sweet sting of sweat hidden beneath it. Dash grunted and shifted Danny closer, until Danny was basically straddling Dash’s lap.

Danny let out a surprised gasp. A smooth tongue licked at his lips. Danny panted and pulled himself closer to Dash, letting his arms drop around his shoulders and his fingernails scrape lightly against the base of his neck. Danny opened his mouth and slid his tongue to met Dash’s. They both groaned.

This was something new and foreign. No kiss could prepare him for this. Their tongues feverishly explored the other mouth, coming together in brief moments of passion. Dash pulled Danny closer, and Danny keenly felt the effect the kissing was having on Dash. Danny was ready for whatever happened in that shed, when a loud voice yelled from outside.

“Come on, you call that jogging!” The pair separated instantly. They were alone in the windowless shed. Outside they heard Ms.Tellstaff yell again. “In my day that sorry excuse for running would be punishable by law!”

They caught their breaths and blinked rapidly at each other. That was…..not what Danny was expecting. The flustered look on Dash’s face revealed the same.

“So….” Danny trailed off. “W-what do we do now?” Dash shrugged his shoulders and wiped at his eyes again, getting rid of any remaining tears. Danny’s face reddened when he took full stock of Dash’s body. The evidence was clear on how Dash felt toward the kissing, if certain  _ areas _ where to be accounted. What was Danny to say though, he wasn’t in a much better state.

Danny cleared his throat and willed his face to return to a normal color. “Why don’t we take this one day at a time?” Danny suggested. “How does that sound?”

Dash nodded. “I-I know this isn’t-” The moment Danny realized where Dash wanted to redirect the conversation Danny took two full strides forward and grabbed Dash shirt by the collar, pulling him down into a silencing kiss. It was simple and firm, but altogether directly to the point. Danny pulled away, one hand fisted into Dash’s long sleeve shirt.

“It’s in the past,” Danny murmured. “I forgive you. We acknowledge the past and we move on from it, that’s what we're doing.” Dash nodded tightly. They stepped apart.

“Can I see it?” Dash asked. Danny stared at him questioningly, had a brief moment of embarrassed horror, and then realized Dash only wanted to see his arm. Danny nodded rapidly and yanked up his sleeve.  _ Dash Baxter _ . It was written plain as day. Dash pulled up his own sleeve.  _ Danny Fenton _ . Both men found themselves smiling as they stared at there own name on the other’s arm.

“Where’d Fenton go!” Telstaff yelled loudly. That was their cue. Danny and Dash ran out in rapid succession, yanking down their sleeves as they went. 

They jogged their assigned laps for the remainder of class. Dash running slower than his normal pace, and slowly inching his way closer to Danny. Oh, so that's how they were going to do this? Danny grinned and sped up. He watched Dash chase after him in surprise. 

 


End file.
